Alnea stared at the Assistant Panel for a few moments, before breaking out into a confident smile.

  “I am.”

  “Then get ready,” the Assistant Panel read. “And brace yourself. This might get a little painful.”

  “Painful? Why?”

  “Though the idea of using a subspace to run Oren through your body is novel, it has a very big problem. This subspace is not a part of your body.”

  “Then why can running Oren through it bless my body?”

  “Because it is stacked on top of your body.”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “In a Glyph Weapon, do you place your Glyph Arrays on top of the weapon as a scroll, or do you engrave the Glyph Arrays on the weapon’s body?”

  “…That makes sense… Wait. Are you going to carve those Blood Crystal Patterns in my body?”

  “Not exactly. The Oren Cycle will still be in a different subspace. That is the brilliance of your idea, and the reason why you won the legacy as just a False Wanderer. But we do need to make a few changes.”

  “Like?”

  “First, the city will separate the subspace from your body and break it into smaller segments. Then, we will integrate those segments back into your body, forming a new cycle. And while we are at it, the city will also help you add in the Crystal Patterns all the way up to the Tenth Stage of the True Rank.”

  “Legacy indeed,” Alnea mumbled, as a hint of excitement bubbled within his chest. He was not afraid of pain anyway. The only thing he cared about were the Blood Crystal Patterns of the True Rank…

  “You should not be too excited though. Maybe the Blood Crystal Patterns are not as dangerous as Mysteries and Glyphs, but they are still knowledge of a higher Rank. Using them recklessly may result in dire consequences.”

  “…But I have been using the Patterns of the Peak Stage without any problems.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “…I am.”

  “What if the consequences are so minimal, that you cannot notice them right away? What if they keep accumulating within your body, until they all erupt at once?”

  “…Is there really a problem with the Oren Cycle?”

  Instead of answering his question directly, the Lost City’s creator asked him a question of his own.

  “What will happen if you use Glyphs of a Stage higher than your Spirit Power?”

  “I would not have enough Spirit Power to activate a Glyph of a higher Stage.”

  “Assume that you somehow activated the Glyph. What will happen then?”

  “…It depends. If my Heart is too weak to withstand the corrosion of the Mysteries, then I will end up being devoured by the Glyph.”

  “And if you can withstand their corrosion?”

  “…Lose control of the Glyph, probably?”

  “And what if that Glyph happens to be within your body?”

  “…But I did not feel any fluctuation of Mysteries from the cycle…”

  “You should never underestimate any powers of the Origin Sea, Alnea Oathkeeper. Never.”

  “…Am I in a bad situation?”

  “It depends on how you define ‘bad’.”

  “…Just tell me what the situation with my body is.”

  “Blessing your body directly with the Oren Cycle of the Peak Stage has placed it under tremendous stress. Especially your organs. Fortunately, it has been only a few days since you began using the Oren Cycle. You just need to get some rest for a few days, and everything will be back to normal.”

  “…That’s better than I expected,” Alnea said. “I just need to refrain from using parts of the Oren Cycle that are beyond my realm in the future, right?”

  “You do not have to worry about that. The city will help you block the part of the Oren Cyle that your body cannot handle. You can take your time to unlock it as you grow in strength.”

  “…That is another way to go about it,” Alnea mumbled. “I still have a question thought. There were these rumours I heard about the Blood Crystal Patterns. That even at the Tenth Stage True Rank, they are incomplete. Is that true?”

  “It is.”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Then—

  “That is the next test of the legacy. Completing the Blood Crystal Patterns. Or in your case, completing the Oren Cycle.”

  “Completing the Oren Cycle?”

  “And you cannot ask anyone for help.”

  “Not even my master?”

  “The Cycle must be completed by you, and you alone.”

  “…There is just one problem,” Alnea said. “My affinity with the Mysteries of Space is not very high.”

  “So?”

  “So, how do you expect me to open up new parts of the Cycle in my body without anyone’s help?”

  “That, you will have to figure out on your own. After all, it is the path you chose. But you do not have to worry about it too much. As long as you can do it before breaking through to the Mystic Rank, you will be considered to have passed the test.”

  “…At least you have some conscience.”

  “The city is always fair. You are just looking at the difficulty of the tests, not the benefits your will get.”

  “What benefits?”

  “You will know when you receive the legacy.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?”

  “Brace yourself and try to remain awake. It will be helpful for you later.”

  “I think you are underestimating me—

  He was not. Rather, the Lost City’s creator might even have overestimated his ability to bear pain. Or surprises. He was never good with surprises. Especially when they knocked the breath out of him, bringing him down to his knees. Or was he already lying down? He could not understand. The meadow—

  What meadow? There were no meadows. No flowers, no birds or insects, not even the cries of children in the distance. Everything was just an illusion, that shattered the moment darkness descended on him, bringing him to a world within his body. To the subspace, that housed the path carved by the Fire Spirit. The Blood Crystal Patterns, that ran across his body. Literally.

  For some reason, Alnea could see both, his body, and the subspace at the same time. He could see where the two intersected, how they overlapped with each other, and the parts that the path missed. Yet, just seeing that path was not enough to make him cry out in pain. It was what happened next, that made him lose all his sense.

  It had been almost two years, since Alnea began Forging his Spirit. Nearly a year and a half, since he switched to the Art of Spirit Rebirth. That was a year and a half of experiencing all kinds of torture, of experiencing constant destruction and rebirth of his Spirit. Yet, in all that time, he had never experienced something as terrifying as he was experiencing at the moment.

  After all, the Art of Spirit Rebirth only gave an illusion of making his Spirit go through a Cycle of Rebirth. The Lost City, however, literally tore a part of his body away from him. And somehow, he could still feel that part, existing outside of his body. So, when the city began crushing that subspace, he too felt as if he was being crushed, shattering into thousands of pieces…

  No, not pieces. Fragments. Fragments of the path they used to be. Fragments of the path they were going to be. But they were not complete. After all, these fragments only accounted for the Blood Crystal Patterns of the False Rank. And the city had promised to open up the paths all the way to the Tenth Stage True Rank. So, the city summoned another subspace next to him. This one, a hundred times larger than the first subspace. Maybe even more.

  Alnea could not tell for certain. Everything felt so hazy to him. Even thinking was beginning to become a problem. Not that the city was going to give him time to think anyway. It just stuffed the subspace into his body, only to tear it away from him in the very next moment, before crushing it in the same way it had crushed the first subspace, making him relive the pain once again. This time, at hundred times the scale…

  Thankfully, the city did not have any strange tendencies. It acted swiftly, and decisively, taking only a few moments to crush both the subspaces, breaking them into hundreds of thousands of fragments. Maybe even millions of them. Yet, the city was still not done with him. After all, those fragments, though connected to him, were not within his body. So, before Alnea could catch his breath, the city sprang into action once again. And this time, it planned to let him suffer.

  Or at least, that was what Alnea thought, when he noticed that the city was manipulating the fragments of the subspaces one by one, instead of directing them into his body all at once. Then again, it was probably for the best that the city was taking its time. Otherwise, he would have had to face the pain of being stabbed with a hot, searing knife, millions of times, all at once. Not even his experience of the Art of Spirit Rebirth would have been able to help him then.

  Though it was not as if he was in a much better position at the moment. At least, when Forging his Spirit, he knew that the pain would be over in a few minutes. Looking at the nearly countless fragments of space that kept stabbing him one by one, he did not even dare to guess when his torment would end. What was he fighting against, anyway? Why was he trying so hard to not let his consciousness slip? How was torturing himself to death going to help him?

  Alnea did not know. But he did not dare to bet. What if he missed something important? Like the benefits that the city’s creator had promised. Or any information about the legacy in general. After all, the more he knew about his legacy, the more he would be able to help his master. And if there was even a sliver of a chance that he could help her more by staying awake, then not even Orn herself could make him sleep.

  Thus, despite losing count of how many times he had been stabbed by the fragments of space, he did not let the pain and fatigue win. And to help his master a little more, he even tried to observe everything that he could, be it with his body, or through the strange vision that made him see both his body, and the fragments of space, as the city arranged them in an unfamiliar pattern.

  Taking the point just below his ribs as its centre, the fragments extended like the branches of a tree, spreading all across his body. Be it to his heart and lungs, or to his stomach, liver, kidneys, and even his intestines. And those were just some of the organs he could recognise. The fragments spread from the most conspicuous to the most inconspicuous organs, even to his skin and bones, until they finally stretched towards his head, reaching every part of his body.

  Yet, those were just a small part of all the fragments, arranged in the most basic and simplest patterns of all. Once they formed a complete pattern barely covering his body, they were soon joined in by even more fragments, extending the branches deeper into the organs, before piercing into an altogether different dimension. Yet even those branches were a part of his body. As were the fragments that came next…

  Alnea could not even understand where the fragments were extending anymore. So, he simply gave up thinking about them and focussed on staying awake. A task that was proving to become more difficult with every passing moment. In the end, he could only try to distract himself by focusing on the part of the Oren Cycle he could perceive. The fragments that covered his body, extending into his organs, and then into a different—

  Wait. Why could he not perceive the fragments extending into different dimensions anymore? No, it was not just those fragments. Even the fragments digging deeper into his organs were fading away from his senses, leaving only the fragments outlining his body as part of the Oren Cycle he could access. The rest…

  He would have to unlock with time. And through constantly dredging them with Oren, strengthening them, along with himself. A fact that suddenly popped up in his head. Along with all sort of information about the legacy he had obtained. The legacy, that came from an experiment between the Darkbloods and the Fighting Saints.